Before I go any further with this blog entry I will apologise in advance if its even less coherent than usual. Hopefully you will understand that with barely a week to go until I fly to Morocco I'm a bit preoccupied at the moment! however given the level of support I've had from some of the readers of my blog I feel it would be wrong to simply abandon you now - anyway I promised I'd tell you about Fuerteventura...
So what is there to tell about Fuerteventura? Well the journey there went fairly smoothly - apart from having to queue up twice to drop our bags off as we were 'too early' the first time! You can book an airport lounge for three hours but Easyjet won't take your bag until two and a half hours before the flight departs... Anyway as we'd been to Feurteventura before we knew exactly what we were doing and where we were going this time - which is why it only took two attempts to get out of the airport car park. We had asked the hotel for a room a near as possible to the same as the one we stayed in before - they obliged by giving us the room next door to the one we stayed in before. This was only slightly disconcerting as it was identical but a mirror image. However we coped and even more surprisingly didn't ever try and get in the wrong room.
As I like to be prepared for the 'worst case scenario' I decided I would try my full MdS kit on the sand dunes on day one. The reasoning being that if I injured myself, contracted the plague or got arrested and didn't run again then at least I would have fulfilled one aim of the trip (I'm not calling it a holiday - no matter how many cocktails I had). A 16 mile run over the dunes left me with no sand in my shoes and, whilst I still wasn't sure it was worth the money, the X-bionic clothing seemed to be comfortable and wicked sweat away very competently. I did get a blister on the arch of my foot due to my new shoes needing a little wearing in however it was annoying rather than debilitating so I still considered the test an unqualified success.
Whilst looking for running routes in Fuerteventura on the web, I had discovered that there was an allegedly well marked path from Corralejo (where we were staying) all the way down the island to Morro Jable in the south. It also passed through the volcanoes near Corralejo, which we hadn't got round to visiting on our previous trip. So for the day two run a jog out to the volcanoes, a bit of a walk/jog around and up them, and around the general area for a bit of a sightseeing expedition all sounded like quite a nice idea. Sharon wisely decided she would go back to the hotel after this and leave me to improvise a slightly longer run. I followed GR131 (the path) to the next town, Lajares, and - rather than turn round and go back - I had this vague idea that I could run to the next town on the coast, El Cortillo, from where I had run to Corralejo on my previous trip. This was a fine idea except that El Cortillo was further away than I expected it to be and hence by the time I returned to the hotel I had run 33 miles since I'd left it that morning. As a result I decided that a quick 10 miles before breakfast would do for the next day and I'd have the rest of the day off.
The trip to the volcanoes and on to Lajares, had shown me that there was another way back to Corralejo round the other side of the volcanoes, which opened up the possibility of if not a circular route then at least one that wasn't simply there and back. By being a bit vague about how far it was and with the promise of a Coke when we got to Lajares I persuaded Sharon that we were going to run this together. I really enjoyed it, Sharon enjoyed the Coke and she didn't kill me so I think she was secretly very pleased to find she could run 17 miles in a day and actually enjoy at least some of it!
By now I had slightly revised my training plan and thought I was going to start reducing the mileage as the trip progressed, however I still had 3 fairly hard runs planned...
The first plan was to follow GR131 a bit further. As I'd run the section to Lajares a couple of times Sharon dropped me there and agreed to pick me up a few hours later at Tefia, around 18 miles further down the trail. Obviously I got lost but it wasn't entirely my fault - in my eyes anyway. I was very keen to avoid three large dogs that were barking at me noisily - so keen in fact that I didn't stop to wonder if the path they were on was the one I should have taken...
Anyway after an unscheduled tour of Villa Verde I found the road to La Oliva where I was able to pick up GR131 again. The second detour doesn't count as lost because I knew I was going the wrong way, it was just that the arrow painted on the lamppost could be construed as pointing in any direction but the one I was meant to go. On my third trip back to said lamppost a helpful local pointed me in the right direction (and told me how to pronounce Tefia - Te-FEE-a, apparently).
From there on it was all fairly straightforward, I had some incredible open countryside between the mountains to run in, often without any sign (apart from the trail) of civilisation. I only had one dog incident on the way and met up with Sharon about half an hour later than I said I would in Tefia - which doesn't even appear to have a shop. Twenty miles for the day and one of the best days running I've had in a long while.
The next day was back to the dunes for the ultimate kit test! I had been running so far with my pack slightly weighted with two litres of water (which came in very handy on my 33 mile run!). Today I was going with 6 litres for a total pack weight of around 7kg plus a litre and a half of water in my drinking bottles. This was about what I expect my starting weight on Day One of the MdS to be. Full MdS clothing was worn and a 16 mile dune and beach run undertaken to really test out my equipment and get a feel for what I was in for on the MdS. The result of this run was that I may need to consider putting some tape on my back to avoid rucksack rubbing - although better weight distribution may help - its hard to 'distribute' three bottles of water in a pack. It also made me more determined than ever that my pack will be as light as I can make it...
The last big 'effort' run would be a jog/stagger/walk to the top of Pico de la Zarza, the highest point on Fuerteventura. This was a challenging day, although the biggest challenge was finding the start of the path! Eventually we found our way to the start and set off up. The climb varied from 'joggable' to 'I'm going to walk this bit' and took a fairly long route to the summit through far more greenery than is found on the more northerly parts of Fuerteventura. All in all a nice climb - even if the top was in cloud and so we had no views. Predictably the trip down was quite a bit quicker and we had time to see the sights of Morro Jable before we went back to Corralejo. For anyone that remembers my blog post about my previous Fuerteventura trip, yes, some of those sights were German sausage!
My final runs were along the coast to El Cortillo and another early morning run so we could relax on our last day. In nine days I ran nearly 147 miles, got a sun tan and gained a lot of confidence in my kit.
Since then I've not run too much as I managed to bring a cold back with me - I still reckon its a better souvenir than a wicker donkey though. The last of my food should arrive tomorrow, I'm intending to pay a visit to the lovely people at Racekit over the weekend for a few last odds and ends and then I should be ready! My main preoccupation at the moment is heat acclimatisation - the general consensus is that it is a very good thing. I don't have the time to go to a proper heat chamber, however a few heaters and an exercise bike have allowed me to turn the bathroom into a forty degree plus torture chamber that should serve the purpose and allow me to get nicely acclimatised.
So here we are! Barely a week to go until I leave. Hopefully I will have time to write one last short entry before I go but for now I'm off to decide how much toilet paper I will need....
No comments:
Post a Comment